Richard Pohl (September 12, 1826 – December 17, 1896) was a German music critic, writer, poet, and amateur composer. He figured prominently in the mid-century

War of the Romantics The "War of the Romantics" is a term used by some music historians to describe the schism among prominent musicians in the second half of the 19th century. Musical structure, the limits of chromatic harmony, and program music versus absolute musi ...

, taking the side opposite

Eduard Hanslick Eduard Hanslick (11 September 18256 August 1904) was an Austrian music critic, aesthetician and historian. Among the leading critics of his time, he was the chief music critic of the ''Neue Freie Presse'' from 1864 until the end of his life. H ...

, and championing the " Music of the Future" (the progressive Romantic style of

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

and

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

). Pohl was born in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

. He studied physical sciences and philosophy before taking up writing and music criticism; he also acquired some early musical training. While in Leipzig, he became friends with

Robert Schumann Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...

. Later, after a brief stint teaching at

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...

, he moved to Dresden; there he worked on the ''Neue Musikzeitung'' between 1852 and 1854. During this period he became involved in the "

," the vitriolic controversy between the relatively conservative branch of the Romantic movement, represented by

Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...

Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositi ...

and others, and the progressive "Music of the Future" trend exemplified by the music of Franz Liszt,

Hector Berlioz In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...

and especially by the

music drama is a German word that means a unity of prose and music. Initially coined by Theodor Mundt in 1833, it was most notably used by Richard Wagner, along with Gesamtkunstwerk, to define his operas. Usage Mundt formulated his definition explicitly ...

s of Richard Wagner. Pohl was solidly on the side of Wagner. The much more famous critic, Eduard Hanslick, championed Brahms from his post in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

as the critic for the prestigious ''Neue freie Presse''. In 1854 Pohl moved to

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

, where he became an editor at the ''

Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 'Die'' (; en, " heNew Journal of Music") is a music magazine, co-founded in Leipzig by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke. Its first issue appeared on 3 April 1834. Histo ...

''. He wrote invective-laden articles under the pseudonym "Hoplit" (from the Greek term

hoplite Hoplites ( ) ( grc, ὁπλίτης : hoplítēs) were citizen-soldiers of Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Polis, city-states who were primarily armed with spears and shields. Hoplite soldiers used the phalanx formation to be effective in war with ...

, the foot-soldier of

ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

) in support of Liszt and Wagner, and critical of music of the more conservative Romantic composers. While both Liszt and Wagner thanked him for his support, Wagner in particular cooled to Pohl in later years, especially after Pohl's assertion that Wagner borrowed his chromatic harmonies in ''

Tristan und Isolde ''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was compose ...

'' directly from Liszt. Among Pohl's other works was a novel based on the life of Richard Wagner. He retired to

Baden-Baden Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the states of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos (river), Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the ...

in 1864, and died there.

References

* Article "Richard Pohl", in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. {{DEFAULTSORT:Pohl, Richard 1826 births 1896 deaths German music critics German Romantic composers 19th-century German journalists German male journalists 19th-century classical composers German male classical composers 19th-century German composers 19th-century German male writers 19th-century German writers 19th-century German male musicians